Category: History – General
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Adeyemo Alakija was born Placido Assumpcao in 1884. He changed his name to the original family name, Alakija in the year he was called to Bar in the London Inner Temple, 1913. This was possible because his family knew of their origin in Abeokuta. His father was one of the Yoruba Brazilian slaves who returned…
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Aguda is the term used for Yoruba Brazilian returnees in 19th Century Lagos. Many of these people, also known as emancipados, or Amaros were captured from the interior in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century and exported to Bahia in Brazil. The immigration of Amaros were concurrent with those of the Saros, Yorubas who…
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Israel Ransome Kuti was a pioneer educationist and union activist, born 30 April 1891 in Abeokuta. Israel was like his father before him, an Anglican priest. When he left the Lagos Grammar School, he became the first pupil to be enrolled at Abeokuta Grammar School in 1908. His education continued at Fourah Bay College from…
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Losii Osokale was the Egba chief from Ake, commissioned by Maye, the head of the Oyo-Ijebu-Ife coalition that subdued the Egba people prior to their migration to Abeokuta, to determine the dexterity of Egba’s intention to find a new settlement after the alienation of their villages. Losii was to do this by splitting and casting the…
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Ojigi was the Alaafin elected to the seat of Osinyago rendered vacant by the latter’s rejection and suicide. His vanity was manifest in his expansionism, and he achieved great military success, expanding the Oyo empire into Dahomey and a bit northward to the Niger. This good man, however did not miss what has been the…
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Okanbi was the first son of Oduduwa who was the founder of Yoruba nation. Much is not attributed to him in history, and he had died, like his father, in Ile Ife. It is probable that Okanbi witnessed the great riot in Egypt (traditionally told to be Mecca) that led to the emigration of his…
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Adeniyi-Jones Curtis Crispin was a colonial era parliamentarian, nationalist and medical doctor who was an outspoken critic of the colonial government. Curtis Crispin Adeniyi-Jones was born at Waterloo in Freetown, Sierra Leone, of Yoruba parents of the Creole community in 1876. After a secondary education at Sierra Leone Grammar School, he went to the United…
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Ademuyewo Fidipote became the Awujale of Ijebu land with the death in 1852 of Anikilaya, who reigned during the conflict between Egba and Ijebu. Islam was brought to Ijebu Ode during the Fidipote’s reign and the Ijebu Muslim celebration, the Ojude Oba festival had originated from his presentation of a ram to his friend, Tunwatoba,…
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Epe is a Yoruba speaking town about 60 kilometers from Lagos, also a Local Government Area of Lagos State, with 294 rural and 24 semi-urban communities. At inception, while only a few families lived there, the town was called Oko Epe, meaning “the farm of black ants”. Today, Epe is squeezed in between the fast…